Standing in the Need of Prayer
An old song with fresh relevance for us today.
“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (James 5:16).
There’s an old African American spiritual that gives voice to the kind of dependence and vulnerability this verse calls for. It’s called “Standing in the Need of Prayer.”
It’s me, it’s me, O Lord, standin’ in the need of prayer.
Not my brother, not my sister, but it’s me, O Lord, standin’ in the need of prayer.
This song was sung in community, but the message is deeply personal. It names the presence of others but refuses to pass the buck to them. It says, in effect, “I’m not here to talk about someone else’s sins. I’m here because I need the Lord myself.”
That kind of honesty is what James points us to in this verse. The gospel creates a new kind of community where we pray for one another and confess to one another. The “one anothers” of the New Testament remind us that we’ve been brought into a new family. In Christ, we belong to each other.
However, our new communal identity doesn’t erase personal reality with Jesus. This is why James invites each of us to confess our own sins as individuals. He doesn’t invite us to look around and notice the failings of others but to be honest about ourselves. The gospel humbles us. It softens our hearts. It makes us more aware of our own need than the faults of others. And when we bring a posture like that into our community, the healing power of grace is unleashed among us.
It’s me, it’s me, O Lord, standin’ in the need of prayer.